Think…but not too much

June 29, 2013

Thoughts are dangerous. Terrible, repressive regimes have known this for centuries. But can they be dangerous to writing too?

No. But editing? That’s a different story entirely.

I think that’s why editing can be so frustrating. It without a doubt lacks the creative allure of generating new content. It’s necessary, and largely what separates good writers from the very best, but is it as fun? Naw. Fun is sitting down and thinking “Okay, what would they do next?” It’s actually building this world spinning around in my head, not just putting a spit-shine on it.

That’s why I’ve started listening to music more while I work. I used to write in almost complete silence, with my mp3 player on hand only to “scatter my thoughts” when I found myself getting too distracted. With intensive editing though, I’ve found myself getting distracted far too often, so I’ve just started to keep the music on (at a low volume). I’m jamming my own brain. With Jpop, naturally – hey, I am an anime blogger.

I think the takeaway for me is to try to do as many things that fully engage my brain enough that even a little background music is distracting. That and I need to get better at editing as I go, so I don’t have literally months of intensive editing without any of the fun content creation I so enjoy.

That works for me, but I don’t know how it is for you. Everybody is different. Feel free to leave a comment with how you work. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some editing to do. Where’s that ipod…

For me, I always listen to music, whether it be writing anew or plain ol’ fun editing. I sometimes tend to listen to the same song, as I write, before I realize that I’ve been listening to it for hours! Instrumental or songs with lyrics, at some point, the music becomes like background noise to me, and I’m just focused on the writing. Actually, I need some kind of music to expedite me to feel or set the mood for certain scenes in my novel; otherwise, I spend hours on meditation and reflection, when I could be spending that time on productive writing.